Chapter 27

After their Safari, Brittany and Santana decided to do a live stream on Instagram, revealing the end of the international leg of the tour. It felt like a good, and more personal way, to thank all the fans and express their disappointment over Nigeria. Since it had not been a planned thing, they had not had time to tell the fans to join. They tweeted about it, and then decided to give them some time by washing the dust off their bodies from the Safari. An hour later, Brittany lay on the bed in their hotel room, naked but for the robe around her shoulders; she liked to wear them as capes rather than put her arms through the sleeves. She was scrolling through the photos they had taken, marvelling at how beautiful it had been, and wishing they could have spent more time out there. Santana came out of the bathroom blow-drying her hair and humming happily. It was a mark of how amazing the Safari had been that she was so awake and cheerful without even a single cup of coffee.

"What're you doing babe?" Santana asked, sitting down on the bed next to her.

"Going through our pictures. Nairobi is so beautiful"

"You're so beautiful" Santana said without thinking. Brittany turned to her slowly, grinning madly, but it took a while for Santana to catch on to what she'd said. She groaned.

"Why am I never recording when you do stuff like that? No one ever believes me."

"Because there's a god out there who loves me" Santana said, standing up and trying to ignore Brittany's glee.

"You didn't even hesitate" Brittany went on, sitting up on the bed and crossing her legs. Santana groaned again from inside the bathroom as she shut off the blow drier. She walked back out and stopped abruptly, her heart rate immediately picking up.

"Makes me wonder how many comments like those you keep yourself from saying on a daily basis…what?"

"You should put on clothes" Santana said in a strained voice, looking pained at the words. Brittany looked down at herself and laughed.

"It's so easy with you" she said, standing up and making sure to brush past Santana as she walked to her suitcase.

"Have you seen yourself?" Santana countered, recovering the full strength of her voice. Brittany laughed.

An alarm went off a few seconds later.

"Oh! Oh! We have to start" Brittany said excitedly, pulling clothes faster from her suitcase and dropping the robe.

Santana pulled out her phone, locating the Instagram app and signing in.

"Hello everyone" she said happily into the camera, fixing her hair a little as she looked at herself. "I just showered so my hair's not doing great."

"Wait! Wait I'm almost ready" Brittany said, throwing on a hoodie without a shirt or bra, and tripping as she hastened to pull on underwear and shorts at the same time. Santana laughed.

"She's almost ready" she informed the camera. "Oh Britt people are already typing. Hurry u…" Santana burst out laughing. Brittany had just fallen flat on her ass, one leg stuck in her shorts, the other in her underwear.

"I think I'm gonna do it one at a time" she said sheepishly.

"Might be a good idea" Santana said, still laughing. "There's a question…HA you may want to answer this one"

"Why?" Brittany asked, standing up and now wearing underwear.

"Did we shower together?" Santana asked, looking past the phone at Brittany with an exaggerated raised eyebrow.

"HA" Brittany said, putting her head next to Santana's so her face was in view. "Wouldn't you like to now" she said, then she moved back and put on her shorts.

"Finally" Santana said, moving over on the bed and letting Brittany jump next to her.

"Hi everyone" Brittany said with a huge smile on her face and a little wave. "Oh my god there's so many" she said, seeing that it was close to 500,000 people watching the live stream.

"Yeah" Santana said. "So, we're coming to you live from Nairobi, Kenya, having just gone on a Safari that was honestly one of the best experiences of my life."

"Mine too. It was so beautiful, and the animaallls" Brittany drawled.

"We watched the sunrise too, from the Safari. Ugghh" Santana said, shaking her head, "I couldn't describe to you guys how amazing it was."

"We drank wine" Brittany added conspiratorially. Santana laughed and nodded.

"Well now that we've updated you on our morning-"

"Aaww they say we're really pretty. Thank you so much" Brittany interrupted. She was paying a lot more attention to the comments than Santana was. Santana looked at her. "Sorry S go on." She said smiling.

"We wanted to talk to all of you, and let you know thaatt…" she looked at Brittany.

"The tour is over" Brittany finished loudly, bouncing on the bed a bit.

"The tour is over" Santana echoed, laughing at Brittany's energy. "It was so much fun-"

"So much better than we could have ever imagined-"

"You all were amazing, everyone who showed up to the meet and greets, to the concerts, everyone I talked to on the street or in a shop, all of you who supported me with awesome kind words after the shows on twitter or Instagram."

"Seriously you guys are all so nice, you made her cry-"

"I didn't cry" Santana said quickly. "I was very moved though. I'm so grateful that I got the opportunity to do this, so thank you ALL, for giving this to me."

"S there's already some questions about…"

"Yes…well now we get into some really bad news." She looked at Brittany.

"The reason the international leg is ending in Kenya and not Nigeria, is because the Nigerian government doesn't want Santana to perform"

"They said they don't like the LGBTQ agenda I will be trying to spread there, so I was just told yesterday that I couldn't go. We…Brittany and I were so mad we can't even tell you."

Brittany shook her head. "We really wanted to come and meet up with you guys. We were so excited. It was a real disappointment, so we understand some of your anger over it."

"Yeah…and we're not just letting it go either. We're going to keep trying. It's just that for now, on this tour…" Santana trailed off.

"It's not going to be possible"

They were both silent for a while, Santana looking out their hotel window absentmindedly playing with Brittany's fingers, Brittany reading the comments.

"Oh yeah!" Brittany said suddenly, making Santana jumped. "Sorry baby" she said quickly. "They're asking about our anniversary"

Santana smiled broadly. "It was awesome. We had it when we were in…"

"Colombia" Brittany finished, smiling at Santana for pausing even before she spoke, knowing Brittany would want to say the country.

"What did you do….?" Santana read under her breath. "It was so great, we went hang gliding"

"That was a lot of fun. Santana couldn't stop screaming at first." Santana laughed.

"It was so high up. And we just…jumped off a cliff. I couldn't stop thinking about when Mrs Bletheim asked me, 'if Brittany told you to jump off a cliff would you'." Brittany laughed, rocking into Santana.

"Well you did tell her you would" she said after recovering. "Gosh, we got detention for a week that day"

Santana shook her head. "And Sue practically killed us in practice."

"And Quinn…oh wait" Brittany was distracted by a question. "Are you still doing the concerts in the US?"

"Oh yeah. I'm still going to do the concerts in the USA, that hasn't changed. Brittany and I just have a week off. We'll actually…" she looked at Brittany, who picked up her sentence without even looking at her.

"Be heading back to Brazil. I think we'll be going to Brazil very often from now on. We absolutely loved it there" she grinned at Santana.

"Completely fell in love with it. I bet you'll be sick of us in a few months."

"What was your favourite part of the tour?" Brittany read.

"Oh gosh…uh…the meet and greets I think. Getting to meet some of you, hearing people's stories and them saying why they love my music, what they thought of the shows, things like that. Uh…in Spain I met a really cool band, solid silver, shout out to them, they're a Spanish rock band, and I'm telling you they're so good. They played me a cover of one of my songs and it was crazy. Remember that?"

"Yeah. They were really good. It took me a while to realise that it was your song"

"Yeah. But it's times like that, where I got to hang out with fans and stuff, that was my favourite part."

"What was your least favourite part?"

"Traveling. 100 per cent the traveling" Brittany nodded vigorously. "This one can't sleep in planes." Santana said in mock irritation, shoving Brittany. "She has really bad motion sickness, so we always stay awake for the entire flights. So imagine, I've just left a four hour concert, after a day that probably started at 6 AM, then I get on a 20 hour flight with only one stop or something like that, and I'm awake the entire time, and then we land and have only two or three hours before I have to go to a meet and greet, or meeting, or something the hotel set up for us"

"It wasn't fun. We have had very little sleep over the past two months, especially when we had to get over the jet lag. And I mean, to be clear, we love actually being in the different countries"

"Yes. We love being there and getting to go places and do things"

"Yeah, but to do it all meant we were in an airport basically every three days, on a cold plane with…I mean we all know airplane food"

Santana grimaced. "We've been eating so horribly. Vending machines and fast food" she shook her head and laughed. "And at least I'm dancing a bit on stage, Brittany you should be worried."

"What? Why?"

"You were looking a little out of breath on stage last night"

Brittany gasped in mock offense and squinted her eyes.

"Rude! Offensive! 2.5 million people on the internet have seen you abusing your wife now you know?" Santana laughed.

"What? I haven't abused you. I just-"

"Called me fat"

Santana laughed so hard she fell on her back, and Brittany was forced to hold the phone up. She shook her head.

"You guys see what I've had to put up with for 10 years?" she read another question. "Has there been any point I wanted to leave the tour and go back to work? I can't say there has. It's been nice getting to spend all this time with Santana"

Santana sat up, giggling a little, but intrigued by the question.

"We spend a lot of time away from each other, and I'm usually traveling alone. But on the tour, even though it was more traveling than I've ever done, it was still fun because it was with Santana. She's annoying sometimes but she's my best friend."

"Aaaaww" Santana said, pressing her lips together, then pulling Brittany into her and playfully covering her face in kisses. "I like Brittany a little too."

"But Ellen's your best friend." Brittany said smiling. Santana burst out laughing again.

"Dios Mio, you know Noah called me after he watched that interview?"

"No way"

"Way. He's so annoying. Oh Brittany can you speak Spanish?"

"Yes I can"

"Did Santana teach you Spanish?"

"No…"

"Excuse me?"

"Well…not really. I learned Spanish in school babe" Brittany said laughing.

"But that was a joke" Santana said dismissively.

"Yeah" Brittany agreed. "I learned the very, very basic stuff in school, Santana helped me practice, then I took an online course and really took it seriously, and Santana helped a LOT then. She made me fluent."

"Brittany, how long did it take you to learn Spanish?"

"It took…I can't remember. I think about seven…eight? Seven or eight months. Cause we came back from our vacation, and then by the time you started working at Threshold I was fluent."

Santana looked away from the screen momentarily, shocked by Brittany's memory.

"How do you remember stuff like that you genius?" Brittany laughed and shrugged.

"I remember almost every moment I've ever spent with you." She said seriously.

Santana cocked her head to the side, smiling sweetly at Brittany. "My wife ladies and gentlemen of the internet" she said after a moment, successfully restraining herself from kissing Brittany. "Always trying to get into my pants." Brittany laughed.

"Oh they want us to continue the stream in Spanish"

"I don't know, that doesn't seem fair" Santana said.

"We'll answer the next three questions in Spanish" Brittany decided.

"Santana, do you want to have children soon?" Brittany asked.

Santana bit on her bottom lip to keep from smirking, and looked up, pretending to think.

"What's soon?"

Brittany smiled. "Within the next five years?"

"Yes"

"Well, there you have it. In the next five years we will have children"

"Brittany, After Brazil, what's your favourite country that you've been to on the tour?"

Brittany groaned. "I don't want to pick favourites. they were all so amazing in different ways. But I'll tell you one of my favorite memories from a country we haven't talked about yet."

"Okay"

"I love the Spanish culture. Music, food, everything. So when we ended up in that little restaurant…" Santana smiled.

"I don't know how we ended up there, but it was one of those magical moments."

"Exactly. The food was amazing and the music was like being transported. I don't know where they transported me, but I wasn't in a small restaurant anymore."

"I know what you mean."

"Bueno. Last question." Brittany paused, looking through the questions for a good one. "Aha! How was your first year of marriage?"

"Aaahh" Santana said, smiling. "Good question. It hasn't been anything I thought it would be, but even more amazing."

Brittany nodded at this.

"Santana and I got to live our dreams this year. We learned to live apart from each other, something we failed the first time we tried, and I think it made us stronger."

"Definitely"

"And we get to end it by going around the world and meeting you all. So I would say that the first year will be very difficult to surpass."

Santana nodded.

"And that brings us back to the original intention of this live stream" Santana said, smirking.

"We completely lost the point"

"We did. I blame them" Santana said, pointing at the phone.

"I blame them too" Brittany agreed.

"Anyway the point…what we really wanted to get across, was that even though the tour is over, Brittany and I…well I don't know about Brittany, but I will definitely cherish every single second of this tour for the rest of my life."

"Me too"

"You guys made it possible, seriously, and you made it amazing, so thank you. I can't say thank you enough times. This was my first international tour, likely to be my only one for a while" she laughed, and so did Brittany. "So…and I'm very serious here…it will always be the most special tour of my career. I learned a lot about myself, what it means to be an artist, what my music means, and the impact I want to have. So many of you guys have told me that you love me over these past two months, and I've said it back, but I need to say it again. I-"

"We" Brittany cut in.

"We love you. We may not know you personally, but we love you. We love that there are people out there who connect with me or my music, or our relationship, we love that you support us."

"We love that you are all going through your own struggles, your own battles, your own growth, and that every day you wake up and decide to continue fighting that battle."

"After this tour, I've started thinking of all of you guys as my extended family."

"Yeah"

"I've seen some of you come together for each other. Hear each other's stories and support each other, applaud each other, cry together. I think that's so amazing, and inspiring, and I'm so fucking happy to be a part of it."

"We've said it a lot, but thank you guys."

"Thank you" Santana said again for emphasis.

"We're going to go now, so, all of you stay safe, try and stay happy,"

"Be happy"

"Spread love"

"Ok Britt"

"And happiness" Santana laughed and tried to pull the phone away from Brittany, but she stretched away.

"Brittany…Susan…" she said, straining to reach the phone.

"In peace may you leave the shore"

"Britany" Santana gasped, giggling hard and moving onto her knees as she pulled Brittany towards her. Brittany moved further away, using her full body weight to hang herself off the bed so that Santana was the only thing keeping her from falling. "You're going to fall"

"In love may you-" Brittany was cut off as Santana suddenly heaved her on top of her, something Brittany had not expected. She squealed and dropped the phone as she flung out her arms. Santana grabbed the phone.

"They all think we're insane now" she said, reading the comments about how cute, or adorable, or sweet they were and shaking her head. "Goodbye good people" she said, waving at the phone. Brittany sat up quickly and waved, then Santana ended the stream.

"….Find the next" Brittany finished her earlier sentence, flopping back down on the bed. Santana looked down at her and smiled.

"Dork"

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The social worker had agreed to meet with Brittany and Santana at the lawyer's office, since they were likely to ask similar questions, and the office wasn't that far anyway. The lawyer, had been all too happy to arrange for the social worker to meet with them, and to move the meeting back an hour, so that Santana and Brittany would not have to rush there from the airport. Santana had only talked to her once on the phone, feeling that it would seem like she thought too much of herself if she didn't at least speak to her once, and during that brief conversation, she had gotten the impression that the lawyer was a little too excited to be meeting them.

She sat with her head against the car window, watching the buildings outside zoom by as she contemplated this. It must be a good sign if the lawyer who would effectively be handling the adoption, was happy to be working with them. Surely it couldn't be a sign of something bad. But, Santana could not help thinking up bad scenarios. They could walk in and she would be very disappointed by them, or the social worker could think something fishy was going on, or worse yet, she could be homophobic, and she was merely looking forward to telling them that she was going to make it her mission that they never get to have those kids. As she thought, her musings becoming darker and darker, her body was subconsciously tensing up, so that Brittany, who by now was highly tuned into Santana's body language, looked up from her phone and frowned at her.

"Stop it" she said quietly, putting her hand on Santana's relentlessly jiggling leg. It stopped immediately, and Santana looked like she had just been pulled from another dimension. She was taking in very deep slow breaths, and even as she turned to look at Brittany, her eyes seems unfocussed.

"Huh?" she said absently.

"Stop it. You're going to drown yourself in there one day"

Santana focussed fully on Brittany, frowning. "What?"

"In your head. Santana you need to relax. You can't go in there like this." she rubbed slowly up and down Santana's thigh as she spoke. "I can feel the negativity radiating off you."

"I can't help it Brittany. I just keep thinking about everything that could go wrong. Eric said that this meeting is happening a lot faster than he thought. Like a whole month earlier than he was expecting."

"That's a good thing. It means we could have them sooner." Brittany said, still in the quiet voice. Though Santana didn't realise it, the combination of Brittany's soothing tone and the comforting movement of the hand on her leg was calming her down significantly. Already her breathing had returned to a normal pace.

"The sooner we have this meeting, the sooner they can get on calling people back home for whatever they need, and then in a month or so we'll be able to take them back home." Santana nodded, unaware that as she said 'home' Brittany had covertly shuffled closer to Santana so that the entire length of their arms were pressed together. The effect of this was almost instant, and Brittany had to supress a grin. Santana's previously tense body now slouched slightly as she leaned, probably subconsciously, into Brittany, and she let out a deep sigh. Brittany let the silence stretch for a few minutes, then she dropped her head on Santana's shoulder. Santana lowered her own head to the side, resting it on Brittany's.

"Do you think they've gotten a lot bigger?" Brittany asked, her hand now trailing up the arm she was leaning on while the other continued to rub Santana's thigh.

"Yeah" Santana said. Her voice already sounding less morose. "I read that twins grow a lot in the first few months, because there wasn't a lot of room in the uterus. And they were born early, so they were even smaller." Brittany smiled, making sure Santana felt it on her arm.

"I wish we didn't have to miss so much" she said, again after a few minutes of silence, dropping her voice so that it was deeper than usual. Santana lifted her head and looked at her, then made her sit up and took both her hands.

"We won't have to miss that much anymore Britt. Just three more weeks, and then we don't have to leave Brazil for anything."

Brittany looked down at their hands and nodded, a small smile trying to break free. Santana didn't see it though.

"Look how fast this happened. We're going to have them in no time BeeBee" Santana said reassuringly, lifting Brittany's head so she could look at her. "Don't worry"

"Ok" Brittany said, smiling. Santana smiled back, and Brittany lowered her head back to her shoulder. She couldn't help but feel immensely proud of herself. Santana had been on the verge of a panic attack not five minutes ago, and yet, a few choice touches and skilful inflections of her voice, and Santana was now the optimistic one. She patted her back internally. In moments like these she could not help but laugh at the fact that either of them had ever dated other people. What would Dani have done in this situation? She thought scornfully. Probably told Santana to calm down. That she was overreacting. She scoffed, then realised that she had done it out loud and hastily covered it up with a cough.

"You okay?"

"Yeah…just choked."

"Take some water" Santana said, leaning forward and taking a bottle of water out of her bag.

"Thanks baby" she said, kissing her hand once she had taken the bottle.

"Here we are" the driver said, bringing the car to a stop. Both women looked out at the building. After a moment, James got out of the car and opened the door for them. They got out of the car, but didn't walk forward. "I will go park, then you call me when you want to go."

"Thanks" James said, waving him off.

"You really don't have to stay James. We're not on tour anymore, and we'll be in the building the whole time." Santana said, trying to take her mind off of said building, which seemed to loom imposingly over them.

"I want to stay" he said seriously. Santana nodded.

"Santana are you cold?" Brittany said, removing her jacket without waiting for an answer and draping it over Santana's shoulders. Santana frowned, moving to take the jacket off and wondering why Brittany had even bothered to bring it when the weather was as hot as ever, but as she took in a breath to speak she was hit by a wave of strawberry and coconut, a smell so distinctly Brittany that her brain temporarily short circuited.

"Babe?" Brittany asked. Santana didn't say anything, but just slipped her hands into the jacket and pulled it tighter around herself. Brittany smiled knowingly. "Alright, ready to go in?" Santana nodded